1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital mixer that is used to mix and adjust audio signals in a concert or recording of musical sound content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with the development of digital technologies, recent digital mixers can process audio signals of a large number of input and output channels, and also have a wide range of types of parameters that can be set in each input and output channel. Mounting all individual operators and indicators for setting all the parameters on an operating panel is impractical, because the size of the operating panel would be excessively increased. Thus, in general, a multipurpose display device is mounted on the operating panel, and setting screens (or windows) displayed on the display device are switched to select and set a large number of types of parameters. An assembly of operators and indicators for one channel, which is referred to as a “channel strip”, is assigned to each of the input and outputs channels. Since the size of a single channel strip is rather limited, operators used to set parameters that are changed frequently are disposed on the channel strip. For example, an ON/OFF key for setting an ON/OFF state of the channel, a SEL key for setting the channel as a target channel (i.e., a selected channel) for which detailed parameters are to be set in the display, a fader for increasing or decreasing the gain of the channel, and the like are disposed on the channel strip.
A collection of parameters currently applied to the digital mixer is referred to as “current data”. Current data can be stored as “scene data” in a specific region of a memory, and existing scene data can also be recalled and overwritten onto the current data. This makes it possible to switch a number of parameters with one touch of a button, for example at the time of changing a stage of a concert hall. In a known technology, when scene recall is performed, all current data is not overwritten with scene data, and a safe parameter which is excluded from the parameters to be overwritten with the scene data, is set for each parameter type. This technology is referred to as a “recall safe function” and one example thereof is described in Patent Reference 1. A parameter associated with this recall safe function is also rarely changed. Therefore, in Patent Reference 1, an operator for setting the recall safe function is not provided in the channel strip and the value of the parameter is set in the above-mentioned multipurpose display.
[Patent Reference 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-045425, and corresponding U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0019021.
As described above, the multipurpose display or the like must be used to set parameters that are rarely changed. However, in the conventional digital mixer, display states of the setting screen of the display device are not associated with actual setting states of the channel strips, so that it is difficult for the user to intuitively grasp the association between the channel strip and its display image.